This invention relates generally to communications, and more particularly to providing a called party with a selection of telephony actions the called party may take in response to an incoming message.
Currently a called party may determine the calling party""s telephone number, and possibly the caller""s name, etc. However, the called party is unable to determine the context of a call (e.g., topic, importance, likely duration, etc.) before answering it. Because of this lack of call context information, the called party may answer the incoming telephone call and inappropriately disrupt a higher-priority task (e.g., a meeting, another telephone call, etc.). Similarly, the called party may inappropriately leave an urgent telephone call unanswered (e.g., the called party may fail to disrupt a telephone conversation to answer an incoming call with an unknown caller id, even though the incoming call is from the called party""s spouse who has just been in a car accident). If the called party had been provided with information regarding the context of the incoming call, the called party could have made a more informed decision as to whether or not to answer the incoming call.
Text messages indicating context of an intended call can currently be delivered to pagers or wireless telephones with SMS (Short Message Service) capability. However, these messages are not delivered in conjunction with an incoming call; these messages are provided instead of an incoming telephone call. In the case of a pager, these messages require the recipient to find a voice-capable device with which to contact the calling party and in the case of both pagers and SMS-capable wireless phones the opportunity for an immediate voice connection is lost. This can lead to a lost opportunity to speak with the calling party. Thus, it would be advantageous to employ a text message in conjunction with an incoming telephone call, which could provide the called party with at least some context of the incoming telephone call.
Further, a text message may include one or more requests to perform one or more actions, (e.g., xe2x80x9cCall me at my Mom""s housexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cCall the conference bridge to join a telephone conferencexe2x80x9d, call my pager or leave a message on my answering machine,xe2x80x9d etc.). Currently a recipient of such a text message must read the text message and manually initiate the requested actions. It would be more convenient to provide the recipient with the ability to automatically initiate the requested action by pressing a key or combination of keys on the telephone device. This could increase productivity and reduce response time in critical situations.
Advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description thereof.
The present invention provides systems and methods for transmitting specifications for actions to be taken by a called party prior to the called party answering an incoming telephone call from the calling party.
An embodiment of the present invention provides a method of providing a called party terminal with a selection of one or more responses prior to said called party answering the incoming call. The method includes transmitting a specification for at least one action to the called party terminal prior to the called party answering the incoming call. The specification includes at least one automated action for the called party to invoke.
Another aspect of the invention provides a telephony device including a receiving module for receiving an embedded telephony action with an incoming telephone call. The telephony device includes a display module for displaying a representation of the embedded telephony action prior to the incoming telephone call being answered.
Another aspect of the invention provides a communications device including a receiver configured to receive at least one embedded action specification prior to the communications device answering an incoming connection request. The communications device also includes a processor electrically connected to the receiver and configured to convert data received into a displayable format. The communications device also includes a display electrically connected to the processor.
The invention will next be described in connection with certain exemplary embodiments; however, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that various modifications, additions and subtractions can be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the claims.